Daisy Ridley’s Glasses and Speeder Bike

Above you can see Ralph McQuarrie’s early work on Luke Skywalker, previously Luke Starkiller, but here at a point when the character was going to be a woman. After Lucas finished writing the second draft of A New Hope, he realized it had no major female characters and tried reworking the plot to change Luke’s sex to female. He asked Ralph McQuarrie to incorporate the idea in his next illustrations.

Many fans think that the googles from the early Starkiller designs have influenced the look of Daisy Ridley’s costume in The Force Awakens. Its worth noting that her coat is inspired by other works within Star Wars history, notably the costume design of Starkiller from the Star Wars: The Force Unleashedvideo game. (Yes, the character shares the same name as the early Lucas/McQuarrie character above.) You can see that here.

A reader also tweeted my the above concept art from Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. From “The Art of Star Wars Episode I : The Phantom Menace”. Concept artists Doug Chiang (above left) and Iain McCaig (above right) were both inspired by McQuarrie’s designs when designing these concept sketches that didnt make it into the first prequel. Both artists are also working on The Force Awakens.

Ridley’s character appears to be scavenger, and other fans have noted that her goggles may have been repurposed from a Stormtrooper helmet she may have recovered in the sand dunes.

X-Wing

This isn’t the first time we’ve pointed out that the Star Wars: The Force Awakens X-Wing design (above upper right) looks more like Ralph McQuarrie’s early X-wing concept art based on Joe Johnston‘s early design than the ships seen in the original trilogy. Notably, look at how Ralph’s X-Wing’s (above, left) featured only one engine on each side, which split in two. The X-Wings from the original trilogy (above, lower right) had two cylinders on each side, one for each wing.

JJ Abrams’ new X-Wing does something clever that McQuarrie’s original concepts didn’t feature: the wings interlock to combine to form one wing on either side. You can see what I’m talking about in the above screenshot from the trailer.

Again, this doesn’t mean the Jawas appear in the movie, but if it does start on Tatooine as some suspect, why not? The Jawa tent village was a place where they stored and sold their scavenged goods, so its possible that this idea has been turned into more of a market place in The Force Awakens.